From: Glenn Bradford (gmbbradford@netscape.net)
Date: Tue Jan 07 2003 - 04:47:10 GMT
Matt and Steve,
Matt first.
There are actually two very different meanings of "scientism":
American Heritage Dict:
1.The collection of attitudes and practices considered typical of
scientists.
2.The belief that the investigative methods of the physical sciences
are applicable or justifiable in all fields of inquiry.
The one you call pejorative is the second one and this is the one
you think I have some allegiance for:
MATT:
"The real enemy I was after [in my essay] wasn't mechanistic philosophy,
or even science, really, but scientism. I think Glenn shows some
scientistic tendencies. Here's what I mean: Science ascended to the top
of the cultural pile during the Enlightenment. People began to think that
science would solve all of the worlds problems. All we would have to do
is make a discipline a science."
I don't know why you think I show such tendencies unless you think
anyone who acts according to definition 1 is apt to like the idea
expressed in definition 2. I sure don't. I am, in Rorty's words,
an "old-fashioned prig" when it comes to the sullying of science at
the hands of expanders (or diminishers, depending on the pov).
You say:
"What I see Pirsig doing is taking science and trying to expand its
meaning so that we can have a "science of morals" (which some people
have characterized the MoQ as). But at the same time he tries to
expand morals to mean something that can be made a science. I think
both attempts to be wrongheaded."
I agree. Pirsig is advocating something like scientism here. He is
not advocating the methods of physical science to ethics but he
nonetheless claims to have turned ethics into a discipline that has
scientific rigour. I don't think he has succeeded, and even
Pirsig has backed off on this in LC.
I am sympathetic with Pirsig when he attacks Boas for taking the
methods of physical science and applying them to anthropology at the
exclusion of all else. However, I hesitate when Pirsig says
something to the effect that his moral taxonomy can at last judge
between the morality of two cultures on a rational basis.
This statement of yours gives me pause:)
"What I think it would be better for Pirsig to do is to stick to the
pragmatist, Kuhnian train of thought on science: to level it down to
cultural size, on par with the other disciplines."
This is not the pragmatist approach but the neo-pragmatist,
post-modern approach. The fathers of pragmatism, particularly
Pierce, would want no part of this. In any case, why do you think
it is better to cut science down to the level of the humanities,
and by what criteria would it be on par with them afterward?
Oh, and Matt, did I read you properly when you said that Doug R's
quantonics site was an example of "normal science"? Were you joking
or did I miss your point?
Steve,
You are using the word "scientism" in some of your posts but I'm
not sure what you mean by it. Does it fit one of the two dictionary
definitions above?
STEVE:
>Pirsig
>took issue with the popular misconception that science is value-free.
>(Glenn, do you disagree?)
No.
STEVE:
>I can't imagine that Pirsig could mean that the MOQ is scientific (i.e. a
>part of science) but rather that science is a part of the MOQ.
I think he believes that science should be a moral activity; that it
should be guided by morals. By this re-definition of science, one
part of the MOQ, his moral taxonomy, is science. Another part, DQ,
is not (or at least he makes no claim of this). Generally speaking,
though, the MOQ is billed as a metaphysics, not a science.
Glenn
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